More meatballs,but....

Everyone I know seems to love meatballs. I could theorize about the why of this, but I think I would fall into the butterfly trap I wrote about recently: if you sit down and dissect a butterfly to try to figure out how it flies, or why it captures your imagination, you'll destroy the magic. So, as the cook who supplies all these people with meatballs, and gets the smiles back in return, I'll just "rest" on that, as they say in the law.

My basic meatball recipe has beef and pork in it. Pork is problematic for some of my friends. So I look for variations that can bring these little guys to other people. Some time ago, I made a chicken meatball, which was ok, and in the past, I've used guinea hen legs, and made meatballs from them, trying to track a recipe from my favorite Oliveto's.

About a week ago, Keith and David asked me if I would think about making a meatball combining turkey and lamb. Hmmmmm. Turkey meatballs seem to be the "rage," because turkey is inexpensive, and low in cholesterol, and if you add enough "stuff" to them, you can almost fool yourself into thinking you're eating "the real thing."

ALMOST. In my opinion, eat them as turkey meatballs, not as a substitute for beef meatballs. Trying to pretend something is, what it isn't, is going to disappoint you, each and every time.

Middle Eastern cooking uses ground lamb in a lot of dishes. The geography, I guess, makes it much easier to raise sheep than cattle, so that's the meat of choice. Indeed, one of my favorite dishes in the world is a slow cooked stew of lamb and quinces, with persian spices. It's delicious. It takes a while to cook, but it's worth it.

When you cook with lamb, there is no doubt that it's lamb. The flavor is very distinct. Some people find it too gamy and strong, and their number is very high. So high that you will NEVER find it on a hospital menu, or on an airlines menu, or any place where you have to feed a lot of people, and you look for a "common denominator." But for those who like, and in fact LOVE the taste of lamb, it's a regular part of our diet. Keith's favorite meat is lamb. I don't know if it is David's, but I know he likes it a lot. Keith's mom won't eat red meat, so he gets way more turkey than anyone should have to eat. Still, I guess the idea of the lower fat content, and the taste of the lamb, encouraged my puppies to ask if I could give it a try.

SURE. Here are some things I learned.

For anyone who won't eat red meat, because it's so strong, but will eat turkey, have you ever SMELLED the stuff? Turkey meat is STRONG. Oi, is it STRONG. I swear I thought it was bad, it smelled so much more strong than the lamb did. In fact, my biggest challenge in this new recipe, was trying to balance the recipe and eliminate that stench. The actual cooking is what did it, but just keep that in mind if you try to make this. The meat WILL smell like it's gone rancid. It hasn't. Bear with it.

I took two pounds of ground turkey (this is almost always from the leg, because turkey breast is very sellable as a turkey breast. Legs are more difficult), and combined it with a pound and a half of ground lamb (in contrast, ground lamb comes from all over the animal. Mostly, though, it's shoulder that's used). Then, I did my usual for meatballs: I had three pounds plus of meat, so I added three whole eggs. I worked this with my hands until it was distributed well, and then it was nice and sticky. I added bread crumbs and worked them in, just until the stickiness disappeared. Now, it was time to season. And here was the challenge: lamb takes well to very spicy seasonings: cumin, red pepper, that kind of thing. Not all of my friends take well to it, however. I was feeling a bit of a mental block, and since the taste of the lamb was really what I was after, I decided to leave out anything but salt. And I salted well. There was over a tablespoon of salt in the final mix.

Tomato sauce and lamb just don't seem to work "right" to me, so I decided that I would fry these guys. I formed the three plus pounds of meet into about 40 meatballs. This should give you an idea of how big they were. 40 meatballs, about 55 ounces of meat, so you're looking at a bit more than an ounce of meat per ball. With the other stuff added, these are not small. My fat for the frying was just plain old vegetable oil, because I didn't want to add the element of the olive oil flavor. I used plenty of the oil, and waited until it was hot, to fry the meatballs about 12 at a time. I browned them all over, then put them on a tray, and baked them in a 350 oven for fifteen minutes to finish off the cooking. Frying meatballs until the center cooks, is a guaranteed way to burn them.

While they were baking, I began thinking about sauce. Since I had middle eastern flavors on my mind, but no middle eastern spices, a middle eastern sauce was in order. I had a started jar of tahini, and this seemed like a good start, but not enough by itself. It's too thick, and too strong. But I also had plenty of sheep's milk yogurt, which is sort of "of the same culture" as the other ingredients. When I combined them, I liked the flavor, but equal amounts of the two of them made a sauce that was really thick and viscous. (NOT VICIOUS). So I doubled the yogurt. The sauce was still thick, but it was workable.

When the meatballs came out of the oven, I dumped them directly into the sauce, and we were DONE. And they're good. Maybe as good as the beef and pork ones I make, but in a different way.

If you like spicier food, you should consider adding some spices to the meatballs. Or, perhaps you would like to add the spices to your sauce. You could also add some fresh, chopped mint, or something like that, to the sauce, or even the meat itself.

So, if you find yourself wanting meatballs, but for whatever reason cannot handle the combo of beef and pork, or either one of them individually, here's your out. They're really good.

More stealing: bread pudding

Ok, yes, I really really REALLY had a good time at G ramercy. I always do. There are reasons it's so widely regarded.

One of the desserts that we had that day was a chocolate bread pudding. Now, I will admit right up front: I did NOT make good bread pudding. No siree. Dry, burned, too sweet, you name it, it was wrong with my pudding. The bread pudding they served was chocolate, which is not my cup of tea, but as a good cook, I was observing. Hmmm. They served it deep, in a high portion, like a ramekin. And I remembered that when I piled up my baked pasta, one of the problems I always have with that dish - dry macaroni - was avoided. So, rather than do the bread pudding in a big, broad pan like I always did, I pulled out the ramekins.

I know that for bread pudding - DESSERT bread puddings anyway - you need a rich bread like challah. I got an organic one from the farmers market, and cut away crusts (that really is something you don't need to do, but it makes it nicer). The pudding I was making called for berries. Four cups of whatever you had. Smiling, I went into the fridge and took the last bag of frozen huckleberries from last year (NOW I CAN BUY MORE. YAY!!!!), and mixed them with cubed bread. Then in the mixer, went eight whole eggs, 2 .5 cups of cream, and half a cup of milk (why half a cup pray tell? Very simple: I wanted to use it up). Also, a cup and a half of sugar (this dessert is NOT going to win any low fat, good for you prizes). Also a glug of vanilla extract from the bottle I took eight one cup ramekins, and greased them with oil. Then I stirred the bread and berries together, with my hands, one more time, before I put equal amounts in each of the ramekins. (NOTE: one cup ramekins are VERY big). Then I ladled the cream/egg mixture into each one, until it was all used up. The bread soaks it up very easily.


Now, it was time to bake them, in a "bain marie" as they call it. What a bain marie is, simply, is a hot water bath to protect custard from burning. You take a big pan, put the smaller ones in it, add water, and start baking.

Try to get eight ramekins into any big dish. Go ahead. I DARE you. I wound up using a baking sheet. And because these are unstable with heavy stuff and hot water on them, I put it into the oven first, with the ramekins on it. I then took a teapot full of boiling water, poured it into the baking dish, until the baking dish was full, and baked the guys at 375 for 45 minutes.

If I do say so myself - and I do - I have conquered sweet bread pudding. These were DAMN wonderful.

Try it with different fruit. I wish I had learned this when apricots were still in season, but the dried ones will be going in one, flavored perhaps with sweet wine. I can see plums or prunes going in in the future, and perhaps pears.

These were big portions too. I'm thinking of scaling them back, so I can serve one with some sauce, or ice cream, or some other complimented dessert.

Another mountain climbed. Cooking is like that

stealing from restaurants

Last week, for a birthday party we went to one of our favorite restaurants, Gramercy Tavern.

To me, a really good restaurant comes down one way or the other: they serve excellent food that makes you think: I can come close to this at home if I spend some time on it, or it makes food that is so over the top and challenging that you know you could never do it.

Gramercy, in my view, is one of the former. I love the place. I love the dishes. And there were two that I just had to try to make right away (well, there are three I want to make, no, make that four, but the other two are going to need some time).

The first dish was an incredible squid salad. It was listed as calamari salad with carrots. When it came out, it was mostly squid, with a few squiggles of carrots, and a lovely dressing. This is PRECISELY the kind of dish that a prepared cook can make, if you know where to get good ingredients. And it is exactly the kind of dish that begs you to experiment with it. So I did.

I have written about squid before, and I'll reiterate some of those comments. For squid, smaller is better, and when you cook it, you cook it either very quickly, or for a long, long time. It was clear from the salad that this was a quick cooked squid. It was a bit chewy, but not rubberbands. And the squid were very tiny. Tinier than a home chef can get. So that calls for some changes in presentation.

And I also thought that I could change the vegetables and make the dish even prettier. The carrots reminded me of coleslaw, and while I did not have white cabbage in the fridge, I did have a couple of heads of red cabbage. Small heads, weighing less than a pound (again with cabbage, smaller is better). I shredded a head of cabbage with a sharp k nife (I had just gotten them sharpened, too), and then took two carrots, and shredded them on one of those box shredders (an essential tool in the kitchen). I also had the seeds of a pomegranate from Eric the stud citrus grower, and his wife Kim the citrus bomb. Finally, I had two small bunches of fennel, begging to be used.


All in the name of a squid salad. So here's what I did. After I had all the vegetables prepped, I got a bowl of ice water ready, and then a pot of salted water. Two minutes for the shredded cabbage, and then into the ice water. Then two minutes for the fennel. Out and into the ice water. And finally, one minute for the shredded carrots. When that was done, I took all of the vegetables, drained them, and put them on paper towel to dry (when you're making a salad, your vegetables should be dry, or the dressing won't adhere. Oil and water DO NOT mix). Finally, the squid. I had two pounds of small ones, although not as small as the ones in the restaurant. They went into the vegetable water, and here I learned something interesting. I had the timer set for three minutes, but when I tasted a squid after a minute and a half, it was ready. So, out they came too. I let them cool, separately from the vegetables. Not to the point where they were cold, but cool enough to work with. I sliced them longitudinally, into long strips, but I left the tentacles alone.

When everything was dry, I started on the dressing. I could not quite remember the Gramercy dressing, so I used some instinct. I had some apple cider vinegar, and I used a LOT of it - perhaps a third of a cup - and salt, and olive oil. I mixed this all up, and tossed the vegetables and squid. I tasted, and it was clear that the dressing needed something. I had forgotten that many of these ingredients (squid, cabbage and carrots), suck up acid like sponges. I was thinking the thing through and realized that I had pomegranate molasses. Hmmm. Pomegranates already in the salad... So in went a few tablespoons. Since there was the purple from the cabbage already, the color was not that disturbing, and it didn't mar the white of the squid.

Everything came together beautifully. If you can wait, let this salad marinate for about a day to make it REALLY good. The veggies stay crispy, and the squid stays chewy without getting yucky.

If you like squid, I guarantee you, you will LOVE this

First, summer squash, and now

Winter squash. Actually, I hate that name for the family of hard skinned squashes, because they are available as early as late summer, and of course, all through winter. Those big, beautiful, wonderfully clumsy vegetables like acorn squash, pumpkins of every type (and we'll talk more about pumpkins later), butternut squash, kabocha, blue hubbard, ALL of them. They all taste similar, but they all taste different. To me, the tastes are similar enough that I stick with only two when I cook: butternut squash, and pumpkin. And for the most part, I stick to butternut squash because it's easier to work with than pumpkin. Acorn squash is beautiful with the way it forms those wonderful, daisy like slices, but it's very hard to cut or to peel, and it's somewhat watery. Kabocha and blue hubbard are so big that it's hard to get a handle on them. Pumpkin is somewhat watery, but has its place.

I have no patience for spaghetti squash. This is "famous" because, when you cook it and scoop it out, the flesh comes away in strips that resemble thin strips of spaghetti. But it's watery, and needs a LOT of help to taste good. The only way I've ever found myself liking it, is by combining it with eggs, lots of spices and making pancakes out of it. Very good, but a LOT of work. So let me stick with butternut squash for now.

They have a beautiful color: that cross between yellow and orange and brown, and that wonderful bowling pin shape. And now, I'm going to destroy a myth: the best butternut squash are NOT shaped like bowling pins. We all love those thin necks, tapering in a big, wide bottom. What that means for you, as a consumer,however, is that you are getting a squash that is not as meaty as it could be. Those big wide bottom parts mean more seeds. Unless you're enamored of cleaning them , baking them, and sprinkling them with salt, these do you no good. On the other hand, if you buy one that is "boring" and sort of straight, up and down, you're getting more squash for your money.

Similarly, the smaller squashes are easier to work with. As these squash get larger, the skin gets thicker, and tougher. I have broken vegetable peelers on big butternut squash. When they are smaller and younger, you can almost eat the peel. I have, and don't care for it. But a swivel headed peeler will dispatch the skin from a few of them in very little time, leaving you with a peeled sqaush, which you now have to cut in half with a BIG knife (be careful), preferably lengthwise, and then scoop up all the "guts" of seeds and other gunk (I would explain what that stuff is but it's really gross. Trust me, you don't want to know).

So, you have all of this squash around, so what do you do? Well, there are many possibilities. And as a tribute to my friend John D, I'm going to talk about soup today.

Butternut squash soup. Now, does that say late fall, or what? You go out and do something autumnal, like rake leaves, or play touch football for an hour or so, or go antiquing, or whatever it takes to get you out in the air. You've got red cheeks, you feel invigorated, and until you walked into the apartment or house, you didn't realize HOW FREAKIN COLD YOU WERE. And there's a big bowl of butternut squash soup ready for you. Life is good.

If the soup is made well. And it's easy to make well. It's even easier to make an ok one. We're going to make a good one.

First, let's dispense of something that has no place in butternut squash soup: dairy. It's good, but if you add dairy to this soup, it will dilute what is a mild flavor to begin with. And having said that, I believe you will see that you also don't want to add things that are strong flavored and mask the flavor of the squash. No, you want simpler things, and simpler garnishes. I'll give you some ideas, after I tell you how I make my soup.

Years ago, I got a hint from someone. I used to roast my squash to get more flavor out of it before I made the soup. It took forever, and it always tasted too sweet for me. The roasting brought out the sugars in the soup, and no matter how I tried, I could have sworn there was brown sugar in it. Then, a friend of mine showed me how she made hers. She did the classic technique of boiling the squash, but before she did it, she made a broth, reinforced with those seeds and other yuckies, including the peel. She would wash the vegetable, peel it, clean it out and then dump everything into a quart or quart and a half of chicken stock, and simmer it all for about fifteen minutes. Then she drained it. I remember that there was a lovely, pinkish orange color to the stock, and it smelled of squash. So she had taken the garbage, and added more flavor to the soup with it. Brilliant. So that's what I do.

So you have your stock ready, now let's make the soup. Chop the squash into cubes, without getting too obsessive about it, and when you have about eight cups, you're fine. Now, let's get to work. You will also need an onion, chopped, and for me, a good handful of chopped celery and celery leaves. I find that there is a synergy between the squash and celery, but if you object to the flavor, leave it out. I sautee these in a few tablespoons of vegetable oil, with about a teaspoon and a half of saltand when they soften and the onion goes translucent, I add my squash and stir it through the oil . Then I add all the stock, bring this to a boil, and then down to a simmer. I check every fifteen minutes or so, until the squash is so soft that it's beginning to fall apart. I let it cool, before I put it through a food mill or the blender, to get one of those classic vegetable puree soups.

That is butternut squash soup at its purest. Which I almost never make. What I will do is add a chopped apple, or a chopped bosc pear when I sautee the squash, and then proceed with that. I don't add too much, because I want SOME flavor, but not an overwhelming sweetness. Sometimes, but not always, I add a big tablespoon of curry powder - a mild variety - when I'm cooking the onions. And you know what else goes well with this? Caraway seeds. Yup. You'd be surprised, but they work remarkably well with the soup.

So those are variations at the start, what about at the end? This is yet another of those soups that do wonderfully with some kind of smoked meat garnish. If you feel like cooking a few slices of bacon and crumbling it over a bowl of the stuff, you have my imprimatur. Same thing with slices of some garlicky sausage or chorizo. If you want to put the apples in at the end, for a sweeter soup, sautee a few slices in butter. This is one of the few places where I find golden delicious apples acceptable, so do that. If you're feeling really adventurous, whirl a teaspoon or so of balsamic vinegar through each bowl of it. It's really good.

Now, if I know my friend John D the way I think I do, he's gonna take notes on each variation, and he's gonna try each one. His friends are gonna start coming up with excuses not to come to dinner, because they know there's gonna be butternut squash soup. Their loss. John, you call me and I'll be there. For each and every bowl.

"down home " cooking

Every cook, myself included, falls into the "it's not good enough" trap. We all have the dishes we cook for ourselves, or our partners and ourselves, but wouldn't DREAM of serving to company. Absolutely not. They're too "common," too "pedestrian," or whatever. We all have our reasons for saying "oh, I would NEVER serve this to people." I have them too. And you know what ? Today I had it brought home to me that if you cook well, don't do that.

The background. I had spent a very industrious weekend in the kitchen, making many things I'm proud off, including meatballs, from six pounds of ground meat. When the meatballs were all done, I had some sauce left over - not tons of it, but maybe two cups. It was of course enriched with the flavor of all of those meatballs, and it was really good, but there was very little of it. And I was also faced with a Tuesday when I couldn't get home until very late at night, and cooking our usual fish was out of the question.

So, putting things together, I made a baked pasta dish of the sauce, some left over cheeses (my favorite mozzarella and fontina), and parmesan on the top. Now, as it happened, one of my puppies was over, and I had a whole bunch of food that was more than enough for two, so I shared it, not thinking anything of any of them.

Today, in talking to David, he said to me , essentially, "Girl, you've been holding out. What's all this fancy stuff when you get down to down home and do things like that pasta?"

Frankly, I was stunned, and then delighted. I really didn't think of it as a dish that anyone would really like, but that they would use it as "filler," when time was tight and making a real dinner was out of the question. But the reaction that David gave me was so positive, I have to share it. I haven't heard from the other puppy, Keith, yet, but I will... And I hope he liked it as much.

Learn something new every day.

Ok, now as I said, I happened to have two cups of very rich meat sauce available. You won't always have this. But you should always have some tomato sauce in your fridge. It's liquid gold. Never be without it. So if you have to use plain tomato sauce, I would suggest that you brown about a quarter of a pound of grass fed, ground beef, and mix it into two cups of the tomato sauce. Put that aside. Then, cube a half pound of each of mozzarella and fontina. These are both very good melting cheeses, and I wouldn't suggest changing them. Use these . I think you'll be happier. The play of these two cheeses when they melt is kind of magical.

Put that cheese aside, and then boil a pound of a shaped pasta. I used fusilli. You could use rigatoni, or fusilli, or farfalle, or something like that. Don't cook it past aldente. It would be better if you erred on the side of too firm.

When the pasta is done, then combine it, the cheese and the sauce all together. Pile it into a pan that looks too small. I thought long and hard about using a 9x13, but I used a 9x9. When you have something this thick, the center will stay nice and soft. I think this is one of the reasons that the dish was so successful. Finally, sprinkle a good amount of parmesan on the top of that.

Then bake it for forty five minutes, at 375. The sauce and cheese will have begun to bubble, and the parmesan will have disappeared into the sauce.

Take it out and let it cool. It's going to take a while, this holds heat. When it's cool enough so that it feels like it's at room temperature, cut it into squares. Four if you're feeling generous, eight if you're serving appetizers , and you're done.

This is a variation on a classic dish of leftovers, that every Italian cook in the world knows how to make. Now you have mine.

And you learn something new everyday. This is something I WILL serve people. Thank you David.

take a leek

One of my favorite vegetables, and in my opinion, one of the most overlooked, is the leek. I think the vegetable scares people. It's long, with those big green leaves going off to nowhere. It looks sort of like an "Ahnold" scallion, and frequently, it's not stored properly in grocery stores (but then again, what is?). The other part of it, unfortunately, is that leeks are expensive. Or at least it looks that way. A bunch of leeks, containing three or maybe four, will set you back 3 bucks. So if you don't know what to do with them, why bother?



Because they're good. I have heard the described as a mild onion, in flavor, and I disagree. I think "leeks taste like leeks." I can't really compare them to anything else.



You can buy leeks in different sizes: some are huge and thick, others thin. I think that it is a question of how long you allow them to grow. The younger, the smaller. And the size of the leek will determine what you can do with them . Small ones you can poach whole, large ones, no. The recipe I'm going to give you here could be used universally. It's a very rich, filling, decadent quiche. You're going to love it. And we're going to have a little bit of a discussion of cooking bacon.



First, you're going to need a piecrust. Now, I've written about quiche crusts before, and here's a quick recap . To make two, you need a stick and a half of cold, unsalted butter, cut into cubes. You also need a cup and a half of unbleached flour, a teaspoon of salt and a tablespoon of sugar. Mix those dry ingredients together, and then cut in the butter. I use a food processor, and I pulse it . Add some ice water - maybe four tablespoons or so - and wait for the stuff to begin to form a wet crumb. If it doesn't , add another tablespoon, but no more. Then dump the stuff out and form it into two firm balls, with your hands. Wrap them, and toss them in the fridge for a few hours while you make the filling.

Ah, the filling. Let's start with the bacon. Buy good quality stuff, and heed this about cooking it. Almost always, people burn bacon when they cook it, they get clouds of smoke, and a smell in the room they can't get rid of. Know why? There's an assumption that because bacon is fatty, you don't need fat to cook it. If you add just a tablespoon of vegetable oil to your pan before you start frying, you'll be fine . Don't overcrowd the pan, and take your time. I use a medium high flame, and I only cook about three strips at a time, three minutes to the first side and two to the other. I cook up a half pound for two quiches. As you cook the bacon, fat will accumulate, and you can drain this off to keep no more than one or two total tablespoons of fat there. When you're done, drain the bacon on paper towels, and keep a few tablespoons of fat, to cook the sliced leeks. You slice them by getting ride of the dark green stuff and then cutting circles , thin ones, until you get about two cups. In the hot fat, it won't take more than about five minutes to get them soft. Put them in a bowl separate from the bacon, while you make filling.

To make the filling, you'll need about two cups of milk and eight eggs. Common wisdom says three large eggs to a cup of milk for quiche filling, but I like the extra egg. Use large ones. Mix the milk and eggs together, and add a pinch of pepper and salt.

You now have all the components you want, unless you feel like adding some cheese. This is optional. The quiche is pretty rich as it is.

Preheat your oven to 400. Get your crusts out, and put down a fair amount of flour on a surface and roll each one out. There are lots of sets of instructions on how to roll out pie crusts, and they're better than I could write here. All I can add is, go easy. Don't press too much.

I bake my crusts "blind." That is, I put down foil and weights, and bake them for ten minutes and then take the weights and foil off and bake them for another ten. Put on some gloves and then take them out. To put them together, I put the leeks down first, half to a quiche, then the milk egg and optional cheese mixture, and the bacon last. Bake the stuff for thirty minutes and check to see if you have a fairly firm texture. If you don't, bake em for a nother fifteeen minutes, but make sure there's still a little wiggle. Let them cool outside of the oven. They'll firm up.

And there you are. It's a long one here, but there's not much new. You can do this . Go do it.

Goodbye and hello: cauliflower soup

On Friday, I got an email from one of the food magazines that I read. It was an extremely well written little piece, about how here , in the tristate area, we are now in the most interesting time of year for cooks. For a few, short weeks, we'll have access to all of that wonderful summer produce, like peaches, nectarines, plums, tomatoes, baby zucchini and eggplant, as well as the produce of autumn, like pears, apples, grapes, leeks, celery root, and so on. And it's true. The market is a flood of riches right now: do we cook summer style, or do we cook autumn style? Do we mix them both in a meal? If we do, how?

Last week, I found myself buying strawberries, and red cabbage. Raspberries, and leeks. Pears, and tomatoes. It's wonderfully maddening.

But with all of this going on, I find myself drawn to cooking from what we associate with autumn, rather than summer. At least for now.

For years, I was not a fan of cauliflower. I don't know why. It wasn't as if I had had a bad experience with badly cooked stuff, or anything like that, but I just had a period of about two or three years when I could not get it past my nose. I don't remember how or when it changed, but I do like it now. It will never replace tomatoes, or green beans as my favorite vegetable, but I l ove cooking with it. Especially in soup. And that's what we're about today.

Some years ago, there was some kind of breakthrough, if you want to call it that, in cauliflower genetics. We all grew up with those huge heads of white cauliflower, that blackened as they got older and uncooked. Then, one day, almost overnight, it seems, we had purple cauliflower, and yellow cauliflower.

Anyone who worked with these varieites when they first came available will recall the issues with the yellow cauliflower. See, it "bled" a little. Not enough to turn white, but enough to turn the color of , well, piss. Now there are readers out there who will say "what's wrong with that?" and t hat's fine. But for those of us who had visions of buttery looking purees, or golden soups, the stuff just wasn't going to work. I am pleased to say that this problem seems to have been solved, and the golden color of this early cauliflower now holds.

I say "early" because if you look for this golden cauliflower late in the autumn, you won't find it. The colorful varieites don't hang around long, so get them now.

And when you buy them, go for small. For many people, cauliflower, and the other members of the cabbage vegetable family, are problematic. They smell. They have strong flavors. Stick to smaller heads, and buy two rather than one. You'll be better off.

This is my favorite way of cooking the stuff, in a nice, simple soup. You'll need two small onions, diced, some vegetable oil (no olive oil here. You don't want to mask the taste of the vegetable), some salt, a quart of chicken or vegetable stock, and about ten cups of cauliflower florets. That's easily obtained. You can get ten cups from two medium heads or three small ones. Just cut away the leaves, and break the little "flowers" off of the stem (you did know that the word for cauliflower in Italian is "flowering cabbage," didn't you? Well, you do now. And if you look at the little stalks, you'll see why).

You don't want any spices or herbs in my version. What you do is you cook those diced onions, in about three tablespoons of oil, with a teaspoon of salt, until they just begin to get translucent. When that happens, add the stock and then your cauliflower.

Now, take a look at where the liquid level is with the vegetables. One of the ways to diffuse the strong flavor of these cabbage family vegetables is to use enough liquid. If you don't have the vegetable covered by about an inch of liquid, either add more stock, or some water. Bring the stuff to a simmer, and then cover the pot, but leave it just slightly ajar. Let it cook for about fifteen or twenty minutes. You'll know when it's done, by taking a small knife, and seeing if it penetrates the stem of the florets easily. If it doesn't, let it cook a few more minutes and test again.

Let this cool, because you're going to puree it. When it's at room temperature, ladle it into a blender, and whirl it unitl it's nice and smooth. This will take about 90 seconds for every three cups. Do it in batches and then combine them.

When you're done, taste and adjust the seasonings. I find this soup just fine as it is: nice and thick, bright yellow and delicious. If it's too strong for you, you can add some milk or cream, but be gentle with how much you add. Too much dairy will obscure the flavor of the cauliflower, and if you do that, you may as well make a different soup.

What I've given you here will make about 2 and a half quarts of soup. Too much for you? Well, I've been telling you all along, share it with friends.

From the ingredients, you'll also gather that this is a fairly light soup. So, you can feel good about serving it with the recipe that will follow, the incredibly rich, and incredibly delicious, bacon and leek tart.

Does it get better than this? Berry soup and ice cream

A week ago, Guy and I prepared a dinner we had donated to a fundraiser for his chorus. If I may digress from the recipe for a minute, I want to talk about how easy it is to make friends if, as my idol Anna Madrigal advises "you don't need to keep up. You need to keep open."

The winner of the dinner was my new friend Jeff. I did not know who he was. No idea whatsoever. But when the organizers gave me his name, I thought it would be a good idea just to introduce myself, and get the ball rolling. For those of you who are afraid to do that kind of thing, understand that Jeff has become one of my best friends. It doesn't take much effort if you're open. Anyway, we chatted for a bit, found out we had a few things in common, and a friendship developed. At first, it was solely by email, and it was probably a month before we met, face to face. If anyone kept a book of those emails, and the ones that followed, they would see how a friendship develops, how it warms, how it gets better.

Well, there were a few glitches on the way to the dinner, and it finally happened. By that time, Jeff was more than a winner of the dinner, and I wanted something special. He's also more than a bit of a foodie, and did what I wish more people would do: we discussed the menu. We discussed it a lot. And then he gave me carte blanche with dessert.

Oh boy. Now, when someone has a role in planning the rest of the meal, giving a cook free rein with the dessert is an honor, and also a challenge. I knew that this dessert had to be special. And it's summer. Or the end of summer anyway. Soon, many of the things that we associate with summer won't be around anymore. One of those things is fresh berries. So my thoughts turned to berries right away. And something different, and good.

A week or so before, my friend Raffaele, the chef at Bellae Vitae restaurant, had served me a dessert of fruit soup, with blueberries and strawberries, with a shot of balsamic vinegar, and a scoop of vanilla ice cream. Being the competitive type, I needed to do this a bit better.

Sorry, Raffaele, I think I did. Since I was not hemmed in by the constraints of a restaurant budget, I used blueberries and strawberries, but also wild blueberries, raspberries and blackberries. And my ice cream was home made lemon verbena.

I think people liked it. I won't present lemon verbena ice cream here, but I will describe the "soup." It's very easy to make, and damn good. Put any ice cream you like in it, or just some whipped cream, or creme fraiche, or any dairy product.

Blueberries and strawberries are the sturdiest of the berries, and can handle cooking. So start with these. Add a pint of cultivated blueberries to a non reactive pot, together with about a third of a cup of sugar, and a tablespoon of water. Cover it, and cook it over low heat for about five minutes. The berries will begin to pop and give up their liquid. When that happens, add an equal amount of strawberries, hulled and halved, and cook them for another five minutes.

Get that pot off of the heat, and then, just before you're ready to serve, add liberal amounts of all or any of black, rasp, and wild blueberries. Stir it gently, and taste. You may need more sugar, depending on how sweet your fruit is. If it's too sweet, squirt in some lemon juice. Just a teaspoon or so. Finally, if you are lucky enough to have some fresh lemon verbena, tear up a few leaves and add that. It will give a surprising "lift" to the soup.

Serve this at room temperature, or just slightly warm. It's nice if the dairy can melt into it a little.

And that's Jeff's dessert. Something special and direct, for someone special, and direct.

More in the future, Jeff. I promise.

Flipping great: veggie pancakes

Anyone who cooks is always looking for "something new" to put on the plate. I hear this from people in connection with the starch element of a plate most often. Potatoes are wonderful, so is rice , so is couscous, and so is pasta. But whither next?

I suggest these little pancakes. I don't know if calling them "pancakes" is the right thing to do, because there's the immediate connection with breakfast and syrup and that kind of thing. But you do fry them, just like pancakes, and if you're like me, you could eat as many of them as you could pancakes - and that's a lot.

This is a recipe I found in a spice catalog, and it was for zucchini. Well and good, but I made them with leeks, and that's how I'll present it. Leeks are one of my favorite vegetables, and one of the most overlooked members of the vegetable family. They are mild, so if you want something spicier, you can add some onions, or whatever you like.

While it's not all that true anymore, leeks can be dirty. They grow underground, and the dirt can get into the layers of the vegetable. So what you do is cut off the dark green stuff at the top, and you have to either use it in soup or toss it. Then make vertical cuts, without going through the base of the vegetable. You can now spread it out, and let water get in to clean it up. Then slice them thinly. When you have about a cup and a half, sautee them in equal amounts of unsalted butter and olive oil, with a bit of salt, until they're soft. Put them aside, and let them cool.

Now make a pancake batter. This one has a cup of flour, two eggs, a half cup of whole milk and a teaspoon of baking powder and one of salt. Mix that all up, and then stir in your leeks. You'll have a thick batter, which you can spoon onto a hot, greased pan. Go for smaller rather than bigger here. (If you have a griddle, GREAT). The batter will begin firming up almost immediately. Common wisdom says to wait until you see bubbles form and break on the top of the pancake before you flip them. In my experience, this results in a very dark pancake. If you like that, by all means. If you like a lighter taste, check after two minutes and see if the batter has formed a crust of a color that you like. If it has, get a paddle and flip them. This is not so easy, but with practice, it's not that hard. Let the cakes cook for maybe the same length of time for the first side. Check one by tearing it open to see if it's cooked through to the center. That's the "gift" to the cook. Cook some more if they aren't. You'll get about 10 or 12 kinda small pancakes out of this recipe,and to be honest, I could eat them all. It doubles easily, so if you're roasting a chicken or some other meat or making a pot of chili, etc, just go ahead and make lots.

You can also add some cheese to the batter, if you like. I like the pure taste of the vegetables, so I don't add more than salt and pepper. And you can use leeks, you can use zucchini, and when they come back in the spring, I'm doing this with fresh peas.

This takes a bit more work than a simple pot of rice or potatoes, but aren't you worth it?

ENJOY

Old dogs and puppies: learning new things

A few entries ago, I wrote a bit about the pizza making party that we had with our friends Matt and Matt, and how I learned something.

Cooks are learning things all the time. You keep your senses open, and you pay attention. Maybe you taste something done a bit differently than you do it, or perhaps something totally new that opens up your taste buds completely. You just have to be ready for it, and you have to not be skeptical.

Guy and I refer to two of our friends as "the puppies. " They're very energetic people, but together, in our apartment, that energy seems to magnify, and it's really like the house is filled with young puppy dogs. It's very endearing, very charming, sometimes very exhausting, but always wonderful.

David, one of the pups, was off in Spain for a while and we missed him so deeply. We're glad he's back, and he came back with memories of something he ate that was wonderful. He described it as a crostini of Greek yogurt, salmon and white truffle honey.

Think about those ingredients for a minute or two. Yogurt and honey? Absolutely yes. Yogurt and salmon. Uh huh. Salmon and honey. Doesn't strike you as right does it? Well, think about it a minute. In gravlax, the "cure" that preserves the salmon frequently has sugar in it. Salmon is also a very fatty fish, and fat and sugar do work together very well. Just think of frosting.... But the three of them together seems rather antithetical, at least to this old dog.

But David was really excited about this crostini, and I decided we should make a variation on it.

You can get Greek yogurt in the United States, but the bottom line is, yogurt here is very different than in Europe. It's not as rich. When I was in Germany, I remember yogurt containers proclaiming loudly and proudly "VOLLFETT!!!" or "full fat." Look for that in a US grocery store. Even the Greek yogurt you can buy needs to be allowed to sit to separate it from liquids before you use it. But there was an alternative: mascarpone, that wonderful, full fat Italian cheese that is sort of like a rich man's cream cheese.

Now, onto the fish. I will confess, I am a true salmon snob. I'm not much of a fan of salmon to begin with, and I only eat it, when I do eat it, on the West Coast. So I bought some smoked trout to use in its place. I didn't know that David was not a fan of smoked fish, and in his gentle way, he let me know he wanted to use the salmon. Well, it's his recipe, so if he would bring it, fair enough.

And he did. A gorgeous piece of sockeye, which is the variety running on the West Coast right now. And we put the crostini together two ways: with salmon and with smoked trout. I loved them both. If you like stronger flavors, you'll like the trout one better. If you like cleaner, fresher flavors, you'll prefer the salmon. Try them both.

First, make your toasts. We had a loaf of whole wheat baguette, but you could use any type you like. Cut thin slices, say a third of an inch and toast them in a preheated oven. Keep an eye on them . You dont' want them too brown, or too crispy. Take them out before you think they'll be ready, because as they cool, they'll get crispier. When they're cool, you can get started constructing your crostini, but while you're waiting, slice the salmon into small pieces or if you have smoked fish, break it into small chunks.

Smoked trout almost always comes as a whoel fish. The flesh will separate very easily from the skin and bones, and you can remove the tail and head by simply bending them back until they break. For fresh salmon, you'll probably have to skin it. That's done very easily, by making a horizontal cut, where the flesh meets the skin, and then, grabbing the edge of the skin and pulling. You don't have to be a Swiss engineer about this, because you're going to cut the fish into smaller pieces.

Now you're ready to go. Spread a nice layer of mascarpone on the bread. If you're using the salmon, now is a good time to sprinkle on some salt. No salt needed with the smoked fish. Next, put your fish on top of the cheese, and finally, take your truffle honey, and drizzle a small amount over it. White truffle honey, like any white truffle product, is not inexpensive, but a little goes a long way. Be generous though.

And you're done. In the time it takes to make toast, you've made a wonderful "tapa" or snack, or apertif, or whatever you want to call it.

And I have a new recipe. And I'm going to use it. Thanks David. It's one of the best things you could have brought back to me from Europe.

Making it up as you go along: my friend Brad

People become friends for so many different reasons, it's impossible to draw general rules as to why it happens. In my opinion, people STAY friends for specific reasons, but again, don't try to put a finger on it, because you can't. Just sit back and enjoy it.

Brad sings with Guy in the Chorus that I've written about so often in these pages. We had never spoken at all until two things happened, sort of consecutively. The summer had just started, and I was playing with strawberries and the ice cream maker. Guy and I love strawberry sorbet, but I wanted to do something different. A classic Italian dessert involves putting a few drops of REAL balsamic vinegar on a bowl of fresh, dead ripe strawberries. I began thinking about this as a variation on strawberry sorbet. Coincidentally, there were three recipes in the press and internet that week about the very same thing. Perhaps great minds thinking alike? Well, I made it , and I posted, on my facebook page, that I had made it. Brad was intrigued. He saw Guy at rehearsal and told him so. And then, a few days later, we were at a Chorus function, at a bar where you would not expect to be served strawberry sorbet, let alone strawberry balsamic vinegar sorbet. And that's where Brad introduced himself to me.

I liked him immediately, and intensely. Don't ask me to explain why. Trying to figure out friendship is like trying to take apart a butterfly to see if you can understand why it's beautiful, or trying to analyze why watching an approaching thunderstorm moves you to tears. Just sit back and enjoy it.

And maybe part of the reason we became friends is that I know, when Brad reads the above paragraph, he'll get it. All of my good friends do.

So, as I do with all of my friends, I wanted to cook for Brad. And I learned that he is a "modified" vegetarian. I use that adjective to describe friends who prefer to eat vegetarian, but will stretch to include some other things. There are so many different "flavors" of that it's impossible to generalize. Brad eats chicken, turkey, and vegetarian food. And the first two times I cooked for him, I made chicken.

So Brad was coming over to dinner last night, and I wanted to break away from the poultry (and, full confession here, I'm teaching the puppies how to make roast chicken tonight). So vegetarian it was. And I first thought of spicy macaroni and cheese. Well, spice is not to everyone's taste, and it's not to Brad's. Fair enough. Then I thought about eggplant parmagiana. Nope. Too much work and, frankly, it wasn't sounding like a "this is Brad" dish. So, here comes the day, and I don't have a menu. When that happens, I let the farmers' market dictate what I cook. It never lets me down, and it didn't this time.

I have written, I believe, about squash blossoms. As the weather gets cooler, they will begin to disappear from the market. They're still around, although with a difference. Now, the blossoms are coming from WINTER squash. They're bigger. Some people feel they have a fuller flavor than the summer ones, but I can't taste a difference. I love them both. Normally, I deep fry squash blossoms and serve them as a snack with drinks. When I saw them in the market, I immediately wanted to make something with them, and I began thinking pasta or risotto. But what with them? The blossoms have a very delicate flavor, and texture, and they need to be combined with milder tastes.

Mexican cooking uses squash blossoms with dairy products, like with queso blanco as a filling for quesadillas. Italians stuff them with cheese and bake them. That began to sound really good: dairy and squash blossoms. Still vegetarian, a bit off the standard trail, and doable on a weekday night. But Mexican? No. Standard Italian stuffed? No.

Pasta sauce. With cream. And cheese. I had fontina cheese in the fridge. Fontina is my favorite melting cheese. It has a flavor that moves between very mild, and very strong, depending on how close you are to the rind of the cheese, so you can have different flavors in one dish. And it melts so well, and so smoothly, it makes great pasta sauces. Since we were going with dairy, it sounded like butter rather than oil was the fat vehicle.

Of course as you think about these ingredients: cream, cheese, butter, you are probably feeling your arteries clog. Indeed. Well, don't eat it every night, and serve it with something that contrasts. Still playing with the squash theme, I decided on pan fried zucchini, in olive oil, with some sliced, plum tomato confit. Perfect side dish.

Finally... I always think of Brad as someone for whom the "standard" on things, just isn't right. So when I was picking the pasta, one of the farmers market vendors had pasta made from spinach, and some with beet. Green and pink. Oh, a lovely combination indeed. So that's what it was. And it WAS pretty. The green, the pink, the yellow from the blossoms, the white from the cheese and the cream, and the side dish with its yellows, greens, and reds. Yes, it's either late summer or early fall, depending on how you look at the calendar, and while all those colors are there, use them.

So, maybe we can call this sauce al Brad, or Bradsauce, or whatever. In any event, I'd like to dedicate it to my friend Brad, who became my friend for reasons I don't understand, but remains my friend for reasons I know, but can't articulate. Thanks Brad.

To make the sauce, you need about two tablespoons of butter, unsalted, twenty four squash blossoms or more, a good cup of cream, a half cup of cubed, fontina cheese, a sprinkling of parmesan, and a little fresh ground pepper. For the pasta, I used 3/4 pound each, of fresh spinach and fresh beet pasta. Use one, or both, or use something else, but for this preparation, I urge you to get the fresh pasta. It sucks up the sauce in a way the dry stuff doesn't.

Let's make the sauce first. Melt the butter over low heat, and while it's melting, inspect your squash blossoms. These are always very fresh, and that means you may very well find some of the critters that love squash in them. I once watched a woman recoil in horror as the farmer from whom she was buying the flowers, shook each one, and in almost every case, a beetle flew out. This is the way it is, gang. If it's fresh, you'll find something like this, just about always.

Cut the blossoms in half, or thirds, lengthwise, depending on how big they are, and add them to the hot , melted butter. They will collapse almost immediately. Stir them gently. They're fragile (not as fragile as Annalena, but fragile, nonetheless). Then pour in your cream and again, stir gently. You'll get a very gentle bubbling around the edge. Turn off the heat and add your fontina cheese. It will melt from the heat, and if it doesn't, heat the mix gently until it does. Taste it, and adjust for salt if you need to. If the sauce seems to thick, add a bit more cream until you get it to a thickness you like.

Now, put that sauce aside. Get a big pot of water boiling, or close to the boiling (with fresh pasta, you can get away with water that's less than bubbling). Add a good tablespoon of salt to it, and add your pasta. Testing it after three minutes is not too soon. Fresh pasta cooks quickly. When it's to your taste, scoop it out, and add it directly to the pan with your sauce in it. Stir everything together, and if it looks too dense, scoop a little pasta water into it, and thin it that way. Off he heat, stir in about a quarter cup of grated parmesan, and then sprinkle some black pepper into it. When you serve it up, sprinkle some more parmesan on it if you like (I do), and you've got a nice, complete, filling pasta entree.

I talked about the squash side dish and it's so easy I hestiate to present it, but here it is.

Earlier in this blog year, I presented my recipe for baked, plum tomatoes. Slice up 4-6 of them in long strips. Have them ready. Then cut up about 3/4 pound of the smallest zucchini you can find, and sautee them in olive oil and a clove or two of garlic. When they just get soft, add the sliced tomatoes, stir it around, and you're done. The tomatoes are salty, so don't salt until the dish is done, and you taste it. Put a nice serving of this alongside the pasta, and you've got a great vegetarian meal, made even greater when you share it.

Back again: with grape's partner

Oh, has it really been a week? It feels like a month. I have never been away from this blog for this long, and I don't really think it would serve anyone's purpose for me to start ranting and raving about the "forces of evil" that have kept me away. Suffice it to say that while they are not gone, they are under control. Very little can keep Annalena from her appointed rounds.

It has been said that people who are anxious crave sweets. Perhaps it is a sign of anxiety that I am writing, over and over again, about sweet things. I am going to try to change that, in things to come, but one of the things you have to remember is that, regardless of who the cook is, s/he falls into patterns. If I am cooking the same things that I have cooked and written about before, I'm not going to write about them again. So that is why you are seeing less. The late summer/early fall is a time when , as we transition into "true" fall, cooks are trying to use their favorite summer things, over and over again, because we won't see them again until next year. As I see the berries diminish in quantity, feel myself craving pears instead of peaches, and so on, and so forth, I can see that there is a fundamental change going on, as I cook up the tomatoes, the green beans, and all the other things that won't be here for a while. So rather than repeat....

The last time I wrote was about concord grape sorbet. The response to it this year has been overwhelming , even though, to my palette, the grapes really haven't been ripe enough yet. There is a tartness to them that suggests they are being picked a bit too young, and I'm adding more sugar to the sorbet than I would like; however, as I say, people have enjoyed the sorbet immensely.

Some years ago, I began thinking "wouldn't a peanut butter ice cream be wonderful with grape pie?" My ice cream of choice for that luscious dessert had always been good quality homemade vanilla. I didn't have a peanut butter ice cream. Well, one day, while investigating other recipes for grape pie (I use Richard Sax's wonderful version), I found that the queen of pie, Rose Levy Berenbaum, had included a recipe for peanut butter ice cream in her book. Hmmmm. If she took the same care with ice cream as she did with pie... And she has. And it's wonderful.

The fact that I have actually MADE this has already garnered me a marriage proposal, from a sweet friend. A VERY sweet friend. I do not believe that bigamy is the right thing for me, but under the circumstances.....

Anyway, I want to present this to you. It's really good on its own, and dynamic with the grape sorbet. It is almost like having a frozen version of that wonderful comfort food, a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.

And, let's have a show of hands: how many of you out there are "closet" peanut butter lovers? How many of you have stopped eating it, because it's "just for kids?" I'm one of you and I've gotta get over it. Making this ice cream, and tasting the ingredient along the way, was like getting reacquainted with someone I haven't seen for many, many years.

You may find yourself thinking "I like crunchy peanut butter, I'm going to use that in the recipe." Please don't. In the cooking process, the nuts in crunch peanut butter get very soft and unappetizing. What you can do is crush some roasted peanuts and put them over the ice cream, and that will work better. You can also try putting them into the ice cream at the very last minute, but this is tricky.

Finally, don't leave out the salt. It does the trick. It's just a bit, but it is worth it.

You will need a heaping half cup of peanut butter, the smooth kind. The original recipe called for nine tablespoons. I'm not going to measure that out. Eight tablespoons is half a cup. So I just heap it up. You will also need six egg yolks, 2 cups of heavy cream, a cup of milk, a cup of sugar, and a quarter teaspoon of salt.

The order in which you make this ice cream differs from most. That is largely the result of the very fatty peanut butter. But I think that if you do the standard form of dissolving sugar into the dairy, and then adding the eggs, you could do that too.

In any event, here's what you do. Take the milk and cream, and scald it. That means just heat it until you have little bubbles around the edge of the pot. While that's happening, combine the salt, sugar and egg yolks and beat them all together, until you have a uniform mess. It's thick and ugly, but it's okay. Now, take about a quarter cup of your dairy and stir it into the egg mixture, before s tirring all of the egg mixture into the dairy. Cook it gently, until it thickens. You know the look. It's got to coat the back of the spoon. When that happens, take it off the heat and stir in the p eanut butter. Stir gently. It will dissolve, but it will take a few minutes. Then, let the whole thing cool until it's cool enough to chill in the fridge, before you use the ice cream maker.

I can't imagine making grape sorbet without making this as well. In the winter, when we start eating bananas again, I suspect that there may be a "banana split" concoction of some kind maybe with optional chocolate sauce on it.

I think you could probably work chocolate chips into this as well, and it would be good, if you like chocolate. I may offer some of them to one of our dear friends when we eat it this week.

Ok, my lovelies, back into the kitchen with all of us. Next one will be a savory. I promise.

Grapes, without wrath

One of the signs that summer is ending and autumn is coming, is the appearance of grapes. All kinds of them. If you can stand back and look at a season at a bit of a distance, you have periods where things are available and in season that you never really think about as "together". Today, at the Market, there were peaches, raspberries, apples, pears, and grapes. In two weeks, I bet that won't be the case. In a month, it certainly won't be. But the time is NOW, and this is what we have to work with.

I've been buying and using table grapes for a few weeks. The early, seedless varieities "Nimrod" and "Canadace," which are green and red, respectively. But today, my favorites, the concords showed up. And again, while it may seem like I need a life, I got as excited about the concords as I did when rhubarb showed up earlier this year.

Concords are the "quintessential" American grape. My research reveals that they were not one of the original fruits that colonists found when they got to what became the United States, but were the result of a breeding program with wild grapes (scuppernongs for you word collectors). "Vitis labrusca" as they are called, or "fox grapes." Why they are called fox grapes, no one seems to know; however, the flavor that concords have is called "foxy." There's a musky, deepness to them that is unique . You won't find that flavor in other grapes. Their dark purple color is , at least to me, a sign of the transition from summer to autumn: dark purple plums, figs, blackberries, elderberries, concord grapes. We move from red, to dark purple. And the flavors do , too.

Almost no one sells concords in a supermarket. Again, my research shows that there are several reasons for this. One is that consumers do not care for grapes with seeds. And concords DEFINITELY have seeds. Hard ones. If you suffer from diverticulitis, they can be a problem. They also have a very, VERY thick skin. Many people find the feel of that skin very displeasing. And ironically, even with their thick skin, they are very delicate, and damage easily. I guess in food marketing "tough but tender" just doesn't cut it. Oh well.

When you get concord grapes, you may think they need to be washed, because they have a "dust" about them, or so it seems. If you're that nervous about pesticides and that kind of thing, rub them with a paper towel or a cloth, and do it GENTLY. Don't wash them. Like strawberries, there's a lot of flavor right up there in the top layer (we chemists call them "fruit esters), and you'll pour it right down the drain with the wash water.

Concords don't keep that well. If you buy them on a Monday, plan on eating them by Wednesday, or doing something like I'm going to suggest to you in the following recipe.

People tell me that the best ice cream I make is either my strawberry or my peach ice cream. And that's fine. For my taste, concord grape sorbet is the pinnacle of all frozen desserts. It's simple to make, and again, it's worth having one of those little ice cream makers, just for this. One of my favorite dessert chefs suggests freezing bags of the grapes so that you can make it during the winter, when the season is over. I've tried that, and didn't find the flavor all that appealing. Nor did I find making the sorbet from premade juice all that tasty. So , make it now, while the grapes are here.

To make a quart of sorbet, you'll need a good three pounds of grapes. The hardest thing you're going to do is pull them all off the stems. Put them into a big pot, add a quarter cup of water, and cover the pot. Cook the grapes at very low heat until you've got a good mass of broken down grapes, and a lot of juice. Every pound of grapes will yield about a cup of juice. Keep that in mind when you get to sweetening the juice for sorbet.

While the grape mix is still hot, strain it. Push down hard on the solids if you use a colander, and if you use a food mill (my preferred utensil for this), don't press down all that heavily, because you don't want to crush seeds. You DO want all the flavor that's in the skin. Then add sugar to the hot juice. You'll want about a quarter cup of sugar, per cup of juice. But hold some back and taste the juice. Sometimes the grapes will be very sweet and you'll want less. DO keep in mind that when the stuff is frozen, it won't taste as sweet. You may also want to balance the flavor with a drop or two of lemon juice. The lemon juice will also help to stabilize the color. Some people add a tablespoon of corn syrup as well, to smooth out the finished product. I have never found it necessary or helpful. "Six of one, half a dozen of the other." Then chill the juice, and use your ice cream maker to make the best sorbet you'll ever have. Put a scoop of it next to vanilla ice cream, or peanut butter ice cream, or both, for an incredible fall dessert.

If you just don't feel up to the sorbet, after you've cooked down the grapes, sweeten the juice and drink the stuff as a beverage. There's a Venetian concoction where they mix grape juice with prosecco, and you could do that too. It's GOOD. I think it's called a Rossini, but that may be with cranberry juice. It's definitely named after a musician. The 60s drink "the purple Jesus" is grape juice and vodka, and you've got the makings of that as well. Or, just freeze the juice, and maybe the stuff will work for you in the winter, when you want to recall that "Foxy flavor" as they call it.

Up and coming: concord grape pie. In my opinion, the most underrated and underrappreciated dessert in all of cooking, except in Naples New York, where they have a grape pie contest, every year.

Me and Mary Ann: my favorite 'chocolate' cake

For years, I watched Mary Ann Esposito on television. I LOVE her. I just LOVE her. The first time I introduced her show to Guy he said, prophetically "She reminds me of YOU." I was stunned, because the man was right. We DO cook very much the same way. And - get this - her husband's name is Guy. When I finally got to meet her, face to face, we howled over that story. We chatted in Italian, and she invited me up to the podium of her cooking demo, to make breadsticks with her. I floated on a cloud all the way home. Later, Guy and I took a cooking class with her - YEARS later. She remembered us. I hope to see her again sometime. She's real people, the way many cooks are. With an understanding of having to cook under pressure, sometimes without ingredients you might want, and always on a budget.

My favorite one of her books is "Nella Cucina," and this recipe comes from there. The cake was a standard for Guy, when he was the "Betty Crocker" of his chorus, and ran the bakesale. Now that he is alternating with members of a team, I'm going to pass the recipe on.

When we make this cake, we double it and make two. It's another cake where you have to cut it in the pan. Usually. There's a lot of orange juice in it, and when fruit juice cooks, it gets very sticky. Keep that in mind. Also keep in mind that, when you choose your ricotta, pick a GOOD one. Don't buy the ghastly supermarket stuff. Find a good Italian latticini freschi, or a good farmers market purveyor. It WILL make the difference. If you're 24, with the metabolism of a hamster, use the mascarpone option. It makes a richer cake. But mascarpone is more expensive. And if you're doing this for a bake sale, save some money.

For each, 8 inch cake, you need 2 cups of flour, 2 cups of sugar and a teaspoon of baking soda. Also half a teaspoon of salt. Put these together, and stir them

Melt one stick of unsalted butter. Then add half a cup of strong espresso. I make it by dissolving twice the recommended amount of instant espresso into boiling water. You could use coffee, too, if you have it and not espresso powder. You also need to squeeze some orange juice. Half a cup. That's two, maybe three oranges. You don't need surgical precision here. If you have too much, dont worry. If you have too little, don't worry. Just stir everything together, and add a quarter cup of cocoa. Again, stay away from supermarket stuff - you know, the "quick " stuff. Get a good, unsweetened cocoa. Watch how dark everything gets in the pan. Add all of this to the flour mixture and stir it up. Finally , beat in half a cup of either ricotta, or mascarpone that you've left at room temperature, and two eggs. If you want, add some almond extract. In my opinion, it takes away from the orange flavor.

Pour this into a well greased - REALLY well greased 8 inch pan, and bake it in a 350 degree, preheated oven, for at least 45 minutes. I say "at least," because in about 2 of 3 times, 45 minutes hasn't been enough time. If it's soft and soupy in the center, let it cook for another fifteen minutes.

This is a wonderful cake, just to have around. The orange is subtle, but it's there. The cheese adds richness, and the cocoa , mixed with all of those fats, "blossoms" and tastes like a rich chocolate bar.

I think if you try this., it may become your "house" chocolate cake. Everyone needs one of those.

"Back to school?"

I wrote about the change in the air around September a few entries ago, and the more I think about it, the more I feel it. I was thinking about it again this weekend.

Guy goes to rehearsals on Monday night, starting in September. And when that happens, our whole eating pattern changes. We eat soup every Monday night, and where we used to eat fish on Monday night, it will now be on Tuesday night. All kind of odd, as "back to school" happens. So, this weekend, I had to get my mind back into the set of making soup.

If you look at some of the entries from the winter of 2007, you know I DO enjoy, in fact, I LOVE making soup. But you do have to get back into the swing of it. So on Friday, I was trying to think of what to serve for soup. And I happened to have some fresh canellini beans in the fridge. Let me e xplain.

When you go to the farmers' market, you will often find an ingredient that you did not plan to use, and that you may have some idea how to use. If that happens, buy the stuff, and figure out how to use it, later. You will. Because in some cases, you may not see it again. Franca, one of my favorite farmers, had some yellow beans that I passed over, because I do not like wax beans. Her mother, Jan, who works at the stand told me "they're fresh canellinis." Well, I had no idea how to use them, but hey, I was not passing up this chance. So they were in the fridge. And beans make a great soup.

What do go with them ? Going back to my very first entry, you see that I love the escarole that Nevia grows. She had it again. NOW we're talking. Beans and escarole are classic partners in soup. Greens and beans are. The wonderful Portuguese soup of white beans and kale is an example, and of course, my own beloved minestrone. French cooking has garbure, and you could go on , and on , and on. So we had two components. But what else?

Well, since I had already planned on a pizza of the the Matts and I had made, meat was already on the menu. So this was going to be a vegetarian soup. In the fridge were carrots, onions, and potatoes. BANG. If you have a few vegetables, you have soup. Here's mine.

Chop up two medium yellow onions. You don't have to be too precise about this, just get them cut up. Cut two large carrots into coins, but peel them first, please. Then, peel and dice about twice as much of potatoes as you have carrots. You'll also need about a cup and a half of fresh shell beans of some type, and also, enough greens, like escarole, or chard, or spinach, to fill eight cups or so. Thats not a lot of greens. They take up a fair volume.

Now, cook your beans first. They take the longest to cook, so put them in a pot of cold water, with a pinch or two of salt, and bring them to a simmer. Cook for maybe fifteen minutes.

Put them aside. Don't drain them (this is controversial. I'll explain below).

In a big soup pot, cover the bottom with olive oil, and add your onions, with a teaspoon of salt, Saute them until they become translucent, and then add your carrots. Stir them for a minute or two, and then add the potatoes. The potatoes will stick if you don't keep everything moving around, so keep on stirring, for maybe five minutes.

Now, take your beans, and their water, and pour that all into the pot. There are people who feel that the starch of beans, when dissolved into the water, causes gastric distress. I've never experienced it, and there's nutrition in that water, so I keep it. If you're concerned, drain the beans. Then also add a quart of chicken stock, and if you didn't add the bean water, about two cups of water. Bring everything to a boil, and then lower the heat and simmer for ten minutes.

After that time, start adding your greens, in big handfuls. The heat will wilt them right away, and when that happens, your soup is done.

When I make this soup, I add a chunk of parmesan rind when I add the beans. If you have it, use it, if you don't , don't worry. And if you're a pure vegetarian, you can feel fine about using vegetable stock, or just plain water. When you correct the seasonings, you may want to add more of whatever you like to a water based soup, though.

This made about twelve cups of soup. That's plenty to share with people. There are a lot of singers, and they're hungry after a rehearsal. Someone is gonna get lucky tomorrow. Aaron, it may just be you...

A little of this, a little of that, and an old dog learns new tricks

One of the great things about cooking is that, if you're attentive, you can learn just by the simple act of EATING. You go to a restaurant, and you order something new, and all of a sudden, you haev a new dish. A few years ago, I had pan fried gnocchi for the first time. Now, I cook it myself (and so it seems, does every restaurant in NYC). Or, you order something that you think is not new, and it turns out the chef has done something different, and you have a new taste combination to play with.

And sometimes, people surprise you. Last night, I was teaching two of my friends, both named Matt, to make pizza. Now, when I teach pizza making, I let the students pick their toppings. I generally do some "guiding" with them, because I don't want the toppings to be too weird or not work. For example, gorgonzola is not going to work with meatballs. It may sound good, but it won't. Nor is maple syrup and chicken liver (you think I jest about that one? Don't think that way).

One of my big "things" about composed dishes, like pizza, is that I try not to combine too many flavors. I find that when that happens, the whole is less than the sum of its parts. So when I put all the ingredients out on the table that I had for pizza making, I thought that we were going to wind up with something fairly classic, and fairly simple. After all, the Matts were making pizza for the first time, and for the first time in about 12 years.

Never underestimate the young. They both chose combinations that, honestly, I raised an eyebrow to. But, since I had said "Ok, fine, we'll do what you want," I didn't dissuade them. And ultimately, I am glad I didn't. Both pizzas were wonderful, and I intend to use these combinations in the future. They were really, really terrific.

The first one I'll tell you about, was based on mushrooms, and leeks. I had a large bunch of baby leeks , and I had suggested at one point a leek and green olive pizza. The olives got dispatched, when the Matt saw the wild chanterelles (that's kind of redundant. Chanterelles do not cultivate). And he thought that prosciutto should be his protein.

The other Matt went with hot and sweet chicken sausage, peppers and cremini mushrooms. Interestingly, both of the boys picked mozzarella for their cheese, over other options.

Now, if I had been given leeks for a pizza, I would have gone for fontina. Absolutely. But the mozzarella worked. And I wouldn't have mixed sweet and hot sausage in the same pizza. But it worked too. I'm going to present the recipe for both toppings, and if you make pizza, go ahead. But also consider them as pasta sauces, because I think that's a great use for these.

So, thank you Matt F and Matt M. Never too old to learn something new.

Matt M's recipe:

You'll need about a cup of sliced leeks. Use the smallest ones you can find. Make sure you wash them first to get rid of any dirt or grit, and then cut off the leeks where they start turning dark green, and use the lighter part. Cut the leeks into coin shapes, about a quarter of an inch thick. Get about an equal amount of chanterelles mushrooms. If they're large, half them, or else, just leave them whole. Coat your pan with olive oil, and when it's hot, add the leeks, a good pinch of salt, and a few branches of thyme. When the leeks begin to soften, add the mushrooms, and cook that down, until the water goes off. Taste for seasoning, and remove the thyme.
If you're going to use this for a pizza sauce, then top your pizza with tomato sauce, and add the topping, and then the mozzarella and bake until you have a browned crust, and a good melted topping (for a 12-14 inch pizza, this is about fifteen minutes, at 500 degrees). When you take the pie out of the oven, grate parmesan over it, and then layer slices of prosciutto over it. Don't cook the prosciutto. It gets nasty at high heat. The warmth from the pizza will soften the prosciutto just enough to "paint" the top. People will see some kind of topping through the "pink window'" of the prosciutto, but the taste will surprise them.


Matt F's sausage, mushroom and pepper topping

For this, you'll need one spicy chicken sausage, and one sweet one. We had southwestern sausage and chicken apple sausage, both from D'artagnan. Slice the sausages into about 1/2 inch wedges. Also, clean and dice one red, and one green pepper. We used casabel frying peppers, but you could use bell peppers, too. Finally, slice about a third of a pound of cremini mushrooms thinly.

Again, slick your pan with olive oil. When it's hot, add the sausages and sautee them for about three minutes. You don't want to go too far with them, because they're going to cook some more with the vegetables. Add the peppers, and season well (peppers are always insipid. Be generous with your salt), and saute for another three minutes or so. Add a branch of rosemary here, if you like (we did). Finally, add the mushrooms, and cook for another three minutes. Taste and adjust for salt. Toss the rosemary

Just like before, roll out the pizza dough, and top it with the sausage mixture, and mozzarella. And bake as with the first one. When it comes out of the oven, decorate it with basil leaves (like with prosciutto, put this on at the end) and parmesan cheese.

I can say in all honestly these were two of the best pizzas I have ever had. And I do believe that I will use the recipes for pasta sauces too. With Matt M's recipe, I'll shred the prosciutto before adding it to the other ingredients, but that is the only change in terms of making sauce instead of pizza topping.

This old dog was impressed. Doesn't happen too often.

transition and constants

It's September of course, and while I don't feel as if September de facto means the end of summer, there is unquestionably a sense of change in the air, every September. Kids go back to school. Casual Fridays end. You see a more determined look on the faces of people, as if , even as adults, that sense of "school days" and "summer vacation" ends. For a short while, people will be agressive on the trains, as everyone tries to re-establish an "alpha" position, if they are so inclined. And if you're aware of it, you try to move with the flow. They're constants.

And then there are changes, and transitions. I think that all of us, myself included, spend at least part of the summer thinking about change: what are we going to change in our lives? Perhaps it's best to make Labor Day Resolutions, rather than New Year's resolutions. I think that the sense of purpose that we all bring into September, is much stronger than the one we bring into the New Year. But that's just my view.

In terms of transitions, Guy and I are changing our roles in a number of organizations we work with. For example, Guy, who has been the "Baking tsar" for his Chorus for about six years, is stepping back to a part time role. He's tired, and who can blame him? No one feels his "pain" more than I, because I did it right before he did. And as others step in to do the job, there is both a sense of regret, and a sense of relief. Transition frees us up to do other things.

But transition cannot be accomplished without constancy too. I am currently reading that wonderful classic of Italian literature "The Leopard." The key line of that book, as you may know, is that "if we want things to stay the same, everything has to change." Think about it. It makes a melancholic, honest sense, doesn't it?

In that spirit, I am trying to pass on recipes that I've used, and Guy has used, so that the new bakers can fall back on proven classics. This is one of them. I wish I could take ownership of the recipe, but I can't. Although I will "own" variations.

Many years ago, when the wonderful Marian Burros was the food editor for the New York Times, she published a recipe for "summer fruit torte." Anecdotal evidence says it was the most requested reprint in the history of the food section. It got to the point where she would have to reprint it every single year, come September. And the year she said "this is IT. Cut out the recipe and save it ," she got more laments, nasty letters, and phone calls, than for anything else she had ever written. So she went back to reprinting it.

I haven't seen that recipe in a long time, so maybe change has caught up. But I DID re-learn it from Richard Sax, in his seminal "Great American Desserts." I wish he had lived long enough for me to get to know him better. I loved this man. I miss him everytime I make one of his recipes, which he would be the first to disclaim: ("I'm a collector, not a creator"). No one caught the essence of home dessert making better than he did.

This recipe will take less time to make than it did to read the preceding paragraphs. Make it often as we head off into fall and winter, and then make it again.

The recipe I provide makes one, eight or nine inch cake. Double everything and make two, because you won't regret it.

The night before you're going to make the cake, put a stick of unsalted butter out on the counter to make it soft. Then, when you're getting ready to bake the cake, preheat the oven to 350, and butter your pan, or pans if you double this.
Collect your other ingredients, which are a cup of white sugar, 2 large eggs, a scanty cup of flour, a tablespoon of baking powder, a quarter teaspoon of salt, and fruit. I'll talk about the fruit more, below.

If your butter is soft, this will come together in a blink. Get a big spoon, and work the butter until it's soft, and it begins to get a white color, rather than a yellow one. You'll see this: it's very evident. Then stir in the sugar, combining it well. Then beat in the eggs, one at a time. After you've done that, take the dry ingredients and stir them in. Don't overdo this step. Just combine it. Now pour everything into your pan.

Here's the fun part. The original recipe calls for Italian prune plums, cut in half, and pressed into the batter, cut side down. That makes an excellent cake if you like plums, which I do. If you prefer, slice up a peach. Or a nectarine. Or pour in blueberries. Or raspberries. Or combine them. Or, if the weather says "it's fall," use apples or pears. Or cranberries in the winter. Use ANYTHING you want. If you don't have fresh, use frozen or jarred. Cherries are GREAT in this cake, as are apricots (and I could kick myself for not having frozen some of them this summer). Dried fruit works too. Stay away from strawberries and citrus, although do not be shy about citrus peel as a flavor enhancer. In fact, don't be shy about spices in this cake at all. Think about creative combinations. Lemon and blueberries. Cinnamon and apples or pears. Cardomom and cherries. You know you can do it.

When you've finished making your fantasy cake, get it in the oven, and bake it for forty five minutes. Test. You should have a fairly soft center, but not a wet one. If it's wet, bake it for another fifteen minutes. Bake it longer, too, if you want a firmer texture. You are looking for something somewhere in between clafouti, and a soft yellow cake.

Let this cool. DONT try to take it out of the pan. It's too soft to do that. DO cut slices and serve them right out of the pan, homestyle, the way this cake is meant to be eaten.

I don't refrigerate it, and never have a need to. If your home is a little on the cool side, it won't go bad. I just made two of these - one apple, and one blueberry, on a Thursday night, and they kept until Monday afternoon in a relatively cool kitchen, unrefrigerated. If you have people over, you won't have to worry. Theoretically, one of these cakes serves eight. I'd say four, with some good coffee.

You could find yourself making this cake a few times a week. I won't say that would be a mistake. Keeping it and eating it yourself would be. Bring it to the office. Bring it to a party. Share it.

Roasting tomatoes

When you get to "know" your produce, you begin to realize that when you talk about things like "apples" or "pears," or even strawberries, you sometimes have to talk about what KIND of apple or pear or whatever you mean. This is self evident for some types of produce. Does anyone confuse a golden delicious with a mcintosh (does anyone EAT a golden delicious apple? OOPS. Letting my prejudices through. Sorry). Does anyone confuse a bartlett pear with a bosc pear (now I'm on firmer ground). Strawberries can be more difficult to distinguish, as can things like raspberries, or blackberries, green beans, and so forth.

We're all pretty clear at this point on differences within tomatoes. Beefsteaks, heirlooms, cherries, pears, people get them fairly easily. When you start working within SUBclasses of classes, things do get interesting. "Yes, it's a cherry tomato but it's an HEIRLOOM cherry tomato." Oh. Amongst plum tomatoes, it also gets interesting. Is it a san marzano? Is it a capistrano? And so on , and so forth.

Plum tomatoes come into season just about last of all tomatoes (except maybe for a variety called "early girl." I have never gotten an answer as to why they're called "early girls" if they come into season so late. Maybe someone knows?). You can see pictures from Italy of villages, or families, buying scads of plum tomatoes and then cooking them down forever. We used to call them "paste" tomatoes, because they have so little water in them that they cook to a paste very easily. And that's all fine and good. Everyone should make tomato paste, or ketchup or bottled sauce with plum tomatoes ONCE. And you will thank those who do it immensely afterward. It's hard, hot work. The results are worth it, but this is one category of cooking that Annalena has decided to let pass her by these days.

BUT... I use a classic way of cooking plum tomatoes that I think is worth getting to know. It takes a while, but it's really easy to do . I'm talking about oven roasted tomatoes. These are sort of a cross between sundried and fresh tomatoes. You do have to refrigerate them, and you can't really use them the same way you would use sundried tomatoes. They come out as sort of like a thicker version of the tomato confit recipe I gave earlier. You can vary the recipe a million different ways, and here's mine.

You need a big glass or ceramic baking dish - say 9x13 inches. Then, you need enough plum tomatoes so that, when you cut them in halves, they cover the pan. You should squeeze them in tight, because they will shrink. (I hate when recipes give a number like "12." If you have 12 big tomatoes, they won't fit. If you have 12 small ones, there will be too much room.

People vary on whether they put the cut side up or down when they do these. I actually use cut side up, because I'm going to sprinkle some salt on them, and if you try to do that cut side down, the salt won't get into the tomato. You'll just get salty oil. So, put your tomatoes, cut side up in the pan. Then pour about a third of a cup of olive oil into the pan. If you dribble some on the top of the tomatoes, that's fine, but that's not your goal here. Then, sprinkle about a teaspoon and a half of kosher salt, or table salt if that's all you have, over the tomatoes. Finally, you'll want some herbs. Fresh thyme is wonderful, so is basil. Oregano is also good. What you will want to do is to put the herbs in the oil. It makes some sense to put them on top of the tomatoes, but the heat of the oven will make them crispy, and then bitter. You'll get the flavor of the herbs when the tomatoes sit in the oil. You can also add a few, or more than a few, cloves of peeled garlic to the pan.

Now, put the whole thing into the oven, at 300 degrees (you don't have to preheat but you could), and walk away for 2.5 hours, at a minimum. After 2.5 hours, take a look at your tomatoes. If they are beginning to shrivel up and look interesting, stop the cooking now, by turning off the oven, and letting them cool. If you would like to go a little further, which will strengthen the flavor and sweeten it, let them cook another half hour or so, or even longer. The longer you cook them, the more of a caramel and sugar flavor you will get (keep in mind that tomatoes are fruit and they have a high sugar content). Again, let them cool in the oven, and then, store them in a container, with the infused oil poured over them.

These tomatoes, unlike most men, are incredibly versatile. I know someone who swears by serving them with baked eggs. I don't care for baked eggs, so I skip that, but I do like them on pizza. And I also like mixing them with just a kiss of balsamic vinegar and putting them alongside of something like lamb, or a steak, or some stronger flavored meat. There have been times when I've pureed them and used them as a tomato sauce too.

I can see my friend David suggesting cooking these with some honey and making dessert as well. Maybe. But you know how I like them best? In a grilled cheese sandwich. With high quality cheddar. A close second: on top of a bowl of soup, like a bean soup or something like that.

You know there are evenings when you just sit there and watch tv. So spend ten minutes and put this together, and then go watch that tv. You'll have something wonderful to eat when the evening is over, and you don't even have to worry about getting it packed up before you go to bed. And if you brown bag your lunch, you have something nice and elegant to add to your sandwich.

Into the kitchen everyone.